Group Theory and the Rubik’s Cube
نویسنده
چکیده
A Note to the Reader These notes are based on a 2-week course that I taught for high school students at the Texas State Honors Summer Math Camp. All of the students in my class had taken elementary number theory at the camp, so I have assumed in these notes that readers are familiar with the integers mod n as well as the units mod n. Because one goal of this class was a complete understanding of the Rubik's cube, I have tried to use notation that makes discussing the Rubik's cube as easy as possible. For example, I have chosen to use right group actions rather than left group actions.
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Group Theory and the Rubik’s Cube
The Rubik’s Cube is a well known puzzle that has remarkable group theory properties. The objective of this project is to understand how the Rubik’s Cube operates as a group and explicitly construct the Rubik’s Cube Group.
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